Mark Cuban's Career Advice - Business Insider

All your life, you've probably been hearing people tell you to "follow your passion." This is how you'll discover your purpose, feel worthy and find happiness balancing work and life.?

But what if?you can't jump start a career with those life-long dreams and?your passions never lead to a steady paycheck?

In his blog, Mark Cuban says that following your passion is "easily the worst?advice you could ever give or get":

"Why? Because everyone is passionate about something. Usually more than one thing. We are born with it. There are always going to be things we love to do. That we dream about doing. That we really, really want to do with our lives. Those passions aren?t worth a nickel.

Think about all the things you have been passionate about in your life. Think about all those passions that you considered making a career out of or building a company around. How many were or are there? Why did you bounce from one to another? Why were you not able to make a career or business out of any of those passions??Or if you have been able to have some success, what was the key to the success?"

Instead of mere passion, Cuban says to focus on what you spend the most of your time and effort doing. When it comes to a successful career, your time is what's going to set you apart from anyone else in the business. ?

Oliver Segovia at HBR?posed a similar stance to Cuban, arguing that to find happiness in your career, it's time you forget about your passion.?Segovi writes:

"Today's twenty-somethings were raised to find our dreams and follow them. But it's a different world. And as the?jobless generation?grows up, we realize the grand betrayal of the false idols of passion. This philosophy no longer works for us, or at most, feels incomplete. So what do we do? I propose a different frame of reference: Forget about finding your passion. Instead, focus on finding big problems.

When you figure out how to solve the big problems ???climate change, sustainability, poverty, education, health care, technology, and urbanization in emerging markets ? people will want to employ you and that's when you'll truly be professionally happy.?

Watch Mark Cuban's advice on investing:

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